Headquarters
Exposed frame creates
sustainable HQ
Based in the Suffolk coastal town
of Lowestoft since 1902, the UK
marine science agency Cefas (The
Centre for Environment, Fisheries
and Aquaculture Science) is constructing
a new £18.3M contemporary headquarters
building.
This sustainable – it will have a green
roof with in-built photovoltaics - steelframed
landmark HQ forms a central
element of a much larger scheme that
also includes the phased floor-by-floor
refurbishment of an existing 1980s
laboratory building.
Facilities currently housed in the former
Grand Hotel and Experimental Block will
be rehoused in the new build, allowing
these two old buildings, which are deemed
inefficient, to be demolished, thereby
freeing up a large part of this seafront site
for extensive landscaping and car parking.
According to Cefas, the new facilities
will create greater opportunities for
collaboration and innovation among the
organisation’s employees, local marine and
research networks and the international
scientific community.
The new building will house offices and
meeting rooms, arranged either side of a
spacious double-height glazed atrium and
main entrance. On plan, the structure is
a skewed H-shape, with a two-storey part
arranged along one side and a two and
three-storey element on the other.
The central atrium will house the
building’s communal facilities such as
toilets and kitchens, vertical circulation as
well as providing breakout spaces, informal
meeting and relaxation areas.
Work commenced on site early last
year and initially involved the demolition
of the former hotel’s Palais Block (dance
hall), which then created a space for the
new HQ.
“The site has had a number of uses over
the years and consists of a lot of madeground,
which is quite poor,” explains
Morgan Sindall Contracts Manager Derek
Foster. “Consequently, we had to install
2m-deep pad and strip foundations to
support the steel frame.”
The poor ground conditions also
impacted on the steel erection programme,
as Morgan Sindall Senior Site Manager
Ken Bassett explains: “A crawler crane was
deemed the best possible machine to use in
such terrain due to the significantly lower
ground pressure imposed by its tracks,
compared to the outriggers on a mobile
crane.”
Steelwork contractor H Young Structures
erected the main steel frame in a six-week
programme and will return later in the year
to add a link bridge and staircase, which
will provide access between the existing
facility and the new building.
“Although the overall tonnage is a
modest 117t, the piece-count of individual
steel members is quite high as the building
is skewed and requires numerous small
sections to infill the shape. This meant the
number of individual crane lifts was also
high,” says H Young Structures Director Ian
Peachment.
The building has a composite design with
steelwork supporting metal decking and a
concrete topping.
“After a value engineering exercise the
design was changed from a precast floor
design to metal decking as it was more
practical and easier to install due to the
skewed nature of the structure,” says Mr
Bassett.
Working on behalf of H Young
Structures, Composite Profiles will
ultimately supply and install 1,850m2 of
Tata Steel ComFlor 80 metal decking for the
structure, along with 1,040m2 of Tata Steel
D137 RoofDek, 520m of edge shutter and
5,000 shear studs.
Most of the steel frame is based around
a regular 6m column spacing, with internal
spans of up to 12m. This was deemed
sufficient to provide the new building with
A steel-framed solution has created the desired contemporary
and cost-efficient headquarters building a leading Lowestoft
employer wanted.
FACT FILE
Centre for Environment,
Fisheries and
Aquaculture Science
(Cefas), Lowestoft
Main client:
Department for
Environment, Food &
Rural Affairs (Defra)
Architect: AWW
Main contractor:
Morgan Sindall
Construction &
Infrastructure
Structural engineer:
MLM Group
Steelwork contractor:
H Young Structures
Steel tonnage: 117t
14 NSC
March 19
/Multi-storey_office_buildings
/Steel-supported_glazed_facades_and_roofs#Atrium_Roofs_and_Sky_lights
/Construction#Steel_erection
/Bridges
/Composite_construction
/Steel_construction_products#Decking_for_floors
/Floor_systems#Precast_units
/Construction#Installation_of_metal_decking
/Welding#Drawn_arc_stud_welding.2C_process_783
/Concept_design#Floor_grids